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FIREWORKS AND the philharmonic kicked off a five-day birthday bash for the Brooklyn Bridge last night.

Revelers lined the banks of the East River to celebrate the iconic span's 125th year as a vital link between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

"In the city that never sleeps, it's still the bridge of our dreams," Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz told a cheering crowd last night at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park beneath the granite and steel Gothic structure.

Mayor Bloomberg was on hand to introduce Markowitz, who wore a turn-of-the-century bowler hat and ruffled shirt.

"She never looked as good," Bloomberg said of the bridge, lit up in special colorful lights that will shine from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. through Memorial Day.

As the sun set, the Brooklyn Philharmonic performed in the shadow of the engineering marvel. Composer Marvin Hamlisch serenaded the crowd with a special song he wrote for the bridge's birthday, but flubbed the lyrics, singing the span was built in 1893.

Designed by John Roebling, the bridge cost $15 million, took 13 years to build and opened May 24, 1883.

Alizette Llanoc said the celebration was extra swell because she celebrated her 10th birthday Wednesday.

"It's me and the bridge," said the Public School 295 fourth-grader as fireworks shot from river barges filled the sky. "This is part of my birthday celebration, too. We rock!"

The five-day celebration will feature a string of activities, including walking tours of the bridge and an outdoor film series at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park.

New York Times photos of the events last night. Some beautiful pictures.

The 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge is being marked with a series of celebrations over the holiday weekend. On Thursday nights, there were fireworks.

Building the bridge took 13 years and cost $15 million.

The Brooklyn Bridge lights will be turned on from 9 to 11 p.m. each night through Memorial Day. The celebrations and observances include lectures, dances, performances, a film series presented at the foot of the bridge, information tents, guided tours, and more.

Last edited by The Benniest; May 23rd, 2008 at 06:42 PM.
Reason: more pictures

Brooklyn Bridge jumper survives without scratch

A despondent woman bent on suicide not only survived a 10-story leap from the Brooklyn Bridge Monday - she was barely scratched.

The woman was quickly plucked from the chilly East River waters by an NYPD Harbor Unit about 11 a.m. after several witnesses called 911, police said.

"She's alive - no broken bones or anything," marveled a police source.
The 34-year-old woman was conscious as FDNY paramedics took her to Bellevue Hospital, where she was admitted for having water in her lungs.

Joshua Lott for The New York Times
Ariane Hundt, right, a personal trainer, started the Brooklyn Bridge Boot Camp. “It’s my favorite place in the city,” she said. “I wanted to combine it with something fitness-related.”

The view was delightfully distracting. One could imagine being on that yacht heading up the East River rather than doing push-ups against the eastern tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, where, cheek against the granite, one could see a tiny sliver of water far below. The River Cafe, on the waterfront, looked particularly welcoming viewed through bent knees in deep squat. By the end, the roar of a motorcycle on the roadway below sounded like a personal invitation to head straight to a hot shower and a cold beer.

Joshua Lott for The New York Times
The workouts include push-ups against the bridge’s towers, squats and a 2.2-mile jog. The sessions cost about $20.

It was such scenery that inspired the Brooklyn Bridge Boot Camp, said Ariane Hundt, a personal trainer who has been leading troops across the span in sprints and stretches all summer.

“It’s my favorite place in the city, and I love seeing it in the skyline,” she said. “I wanted to combine it with something fitness-related.”

A former pharmaceutical market researcher, Ms. Hundt, 32, lives in Long Island City, but said Queensboro Bridge Boot Camp did not sound quite as catchy.

Boot camps, group workouts with military flavor and fervor, are by no means new, but they have been growing in popularity, spreading from the city’s parks — Central, Battery, Washington Square and Prospect, among others — to the suburbs. Nationally, there are boot camps for men only, boot camps for brides, boot camps for new mothers, even boot camps that march across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Most of the seven weekly Brooklyn Bridge sessions are held early in the morning; all but one start on the Manhattan side. The participants of one session the other evening said that they had chosen the workout for its convenience, its potential group spirit and because once you pay for an athletic ordeal (about $20 a session), you’re more likely to actually do it.

Among the participants was Amanda Van Exel, 23, a dental student visiting from Amsterdam who had joined the class on the second day of her vacation and had come back for another round.

At the City Hall side of the bridge on Thursday at 6 p.m., Ms. Hundt warned her six female cadets (plus one reporter) against straying north of the walkway line into the cyclists’ lane.

“Do not ever go into their lane or you will hear the worst New York swears,” Ms. Hundt told the group. “It’s the New York experience for you, Amanda.”

Checking her watch, Ms. Hundt announced, “Whoever is late has to catch up,” and her charges were off and running, stopping at each tower to do some strength training on their way to Brooklyn and back. It was 2.2 miles round trip and took an hour (no water breaks).

Ms. Hundt, who wears pearl earrings and a sleeveless T-shirt that proclaims, “Butt-kicking Now Has a View,” was warm and welcoming at the beginning of the workout, offering encouragement — “I like to see you shaking” — as the women followed her through tricep dips, pliť squats and lunges.

As tourists took pictures, she lined the women up along the rail of a bridge tower, telling them to stand on their toes, hold the railing like a barre and to squat back.

“Take a seat right here, enjoy the waterfalls, or anything else you can see,” she said.

Toward the end, she asked each woman how hard she had worked, on a scale of 1 to 10. The answers ranged from 7 to 9. (Reporters, blessed with the urgent need to write things down during curls and sprints, are exempt from such questions.) “By the time we’re down at the benches, you need to be at an 8, or 8.5. You know what that means,” she said.

“You look like an 8,” she said to a glistening Shantelle Guyton, 26, who had said 7.

On the way back to Manhattan, the shade of the Woolworth Building had never felt so good. Shana Glass, 28, a preschool teacher from Park Slope, had just completed her fifth bridge boot camp session.

“I feel stronger, with the squats and lunges,” Ms. Glass said. “It doesn’t hurt” as much as when she started, she said. “It still hurts, just not as early.”